A Ruview of Rupaul's Drag Race

A SICKENING RUVIEW OF RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE

By Charles Jack White

Rupaul's Drag Race has slowly entered the fray as a global phenomenon encompassing itself as a valuable treasure to the LGBTQIA+ community as a mainstream form of media to allow self expression of our selves. 

The show began to air in 2009, created by the person whose name is in the title, Rupaul Charles or as called by his stage name, RuPaul, is known to be one of the most legendary queens out there who started out his career in 1982 and shook the country with his fierce, sickening looks as he broke the gender norms and society as a whole and opened up the gate for other people in the community to express themselves for who they are and not what society forced them to be. As Mama Ru has always said ''We're all born naked and the rest is Drag.''

(Rupaul Charles, creator of Rupaul's Drag Race (out of drag).)

(Rupaul Charles, creator of Rupaul's Drag Race (in drag).)

Drag is a form of expressing ourselves through how we dress, it's a performance art where men and women dress up in different costumes and outfits to portray themselves as something they aren't. 

The show focuses on Drag Queens, men who dress in a more feminine manner with make-up and all, but isn't necessarily meaning that you have to look pretty,  many queens love to go for outlandish and creepy looks, it all depends on the person but  no matter how they look it's all the same, it's all drag.

 

(Plastique Tiara, a contestant competing on Season 11 of RPDR.)

(Yvie Oddly, a contestant competing on Season 11 of RPDR.)

 

(Violet Chatski, Winner of Season 7 of RPDR.)

In the show's essence, it's a reality show competition where Drag Queens compete in to become America's next Drag Superstar and to win a $100,000 .00  cash prize. Queens are made to perform assigned challenges every week as one by one, a queen is eliminated until 3/4 queens move onto the Grand Finale as one is crowned at the end of it all. The challenges are divided into two categories,  Mini Challenges and Maxi Challenges. Mini Challenges are light-hearted and are merely meant for fun at the start of an episode, no elimination is done during these challenges. Maxi Challenges are the real meat of an episode, where queens are tasked to performing different things varying from dancing, singing, acting and etc. 

The top queen of the week wins a luxurious prize like a trip to a fancy resort or a set of high quality necklaces. From then, Rupaul announces the bottom two queens of the week and the two have to        ''Lipsync For Their Life''to the song chosen that week by Ru. The queen that wins the lipsync gets told ''Shantay, you stay'' while the losing queen gets told to ''Sashay away'' as they are eliminated from the competition. 

The show isn't just a mere competition however, each episode is filled with drama as you would expect as much from people with such big personalities. But it's not just all drama, the queens aren't afraid to open up with their experiences, whether they are happy like being accepted by their parents for being gay to being sad and tragic like being raped or being put into conversion therapy by their own parents and being discriminated for their race and health problems. The show tackles all these issues forced hidden by the horrible sides of our society that want to suppress us and to misrepresent us as evil creatures when we are all vulnerable and capable of love and all these other feelings that make us human. During these heart filled moments, the queens gather up together and comfort each others as sisters. As Mama Ru once said, ''As gay people, we get to choose our families''.   

https://twitter.com/RuPaulsDragRace/status/1103762449797443587?fbclid=IwAR0n67QEE1OQPDyZrQjUw50y8dHg7D_l9GngolxD6IkdGiAftfXtwo4mP48

(A clip showing a queen opening up to the others of her experiences of islamophobia.)

This show has helped and changed so many peoples lives for the better, just like mines when I was so lost in myself with my depression. To end this RuView off, I'd like to leave a quote that Mama Ru herself says at the end of every episode. ''If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen? "